Using McDonald’s as a Study Hall

interesting piece in yesterday’s WSJ on how lower income families are using the free online access via McDonald’s or other locations for school work. While many of us may have scoffed at McDonald’s having Wifi, it’s become an important “third place” for kids who need to get online for their school-work thanks to the limits of the digital divide. My kids are still too young to really need online access for school work and we also don’t have to worry about connectivity, but I really empathize here and would love to see a bigger initiative to provide real internet connectivity as a baseline utility rather than privilege as it is now. McDonald’s is not an ideal place to do school work … though I appreciate as well that in some cases it may actually be less chaotic than at home.